from Chris Snelgrove
| Published
We’ve been pretty hard on Disney+ here for a very specific reason: their lackluster MCU TV content. When the streaming service was first announced, the prospect of more movie-quality Marvel content on the small screen was perhaps the biggest draw, even more so than the promise of Star Wars on the small screen. House of Mouse has unfortunately squandered most of the MCU’s television potential, but they could turn that ship around by doing something radical: namely, reviving Netflix’s Marvel model of creating shows around smaller characters that not associated with the movies.
Before the arrival of Disney+, Marvel’s television content was split across multiple platforms. The more family-friendly Agents of SHIELD aired on ABC, while Marvel had shows specifically designed for mature audiences, including Daredevil, Jessica Jonesand Luke Cage.
The ABC show has a lot of fans, as do the shows that later aired on other streaming platforms (I’m pretty addicted to Hulu’s fugitives yourself) but the series of Netflix instantly became a global phenomenon. They were everything that fans thought we couldn’t have with the MCU—cruel, brutal, and dark—and one of the only downsides was that the shows distanced themselves from the Marvel movies (and vice versa).
While I understood the logistical difficulties of scheduling cameos around many different shooting schedules, I was one of those fans who was always disappointed that we didn’t get to see characters like Jessica Jones appear in The Avengers movies. However, now that so much of the Disney+ content it replaced shows as Daredevil it turned out to be disappointing, I completely changed my mind. The simple truth is that no connecting to the movies has been one of the strongest points of Marvel Netflix’s content, and trying to enforce such a connection is the biggest weakness from Disney+ shows.
How making Marvel a connected universe ruined Marvel
for example, Loki was a very popular TV show on Disney+, and its only major flaw is that it spent two seasons trying to set up Kang the Conqueror as Marvel’s next Big Bad. It’s easy to say now that it was a waste of time because Jonathan Majors’ legal drama led to Kahn’s discharge from MCU in general. But here it is the thing: even if these legal woes never happened and Majors is “The One Left Behind” for future films, spending so much time preparing a future film means that Loki wasted the chance to tell a more self-contained and intimate story about the main character.
This is the kind of mistake Disney keeps making with these shows. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier told an uneven story that mostly exists to create Captain America 4a film that has been plagued by delays and reported reshoots. Secret invasion mishandled a classic comic plot, it seems just to find out why Nick Fury was in space in time for The miracles. Similarly, the end of Ms. Marvel was sacrificed to create The miraclesa film that became a historic box office failure for Disney.
Uniqueness is Marvel’s strength
Again, it’s easy to pick on these shows through the prism of hindsight because we now know that the films they produced suffered from production difficulties and box office problems. But wouldn’t it be better if these shows had almost nothing to do with the movies? They could tell their own stories and provide an ending that would be satisfying no matter what happened with the release of the subsequent films. Netflix’s Marvel shows were forced into their own little corner of the world and ended up thriving not in malice of the lack of connection with the films, but because from him.
Jessica Jonesfor example, he could have afforded some fun stunts by making David Tennant the villainous Purple Man. In the Disney+ era, it would be harder to sign Doctor Who star because executives would like him on a 10-year contract for future shows and movies. Likewise, I’m convinced that it would have been easier to sign Vincent D’Onofrio as a villain on a unique TV show, and that he might have opted out of the draconian contracts of the modern Disney+ era.
The Netflix shows’ distance from the larger MCU has helped them tell different kinds of stories about different kinds of characters. The hard-drinking and unashamedly vulgar Jessica Jones, for example, would probably clash with the flamboyant characters in a breezy Avengers adventure, but she thrives in the noir-drenched world of a show whose sex and violence will never make it to Marvel’s big screen. Similarly, Luke Cage was able to handle discussions of race and racism in a way that would probably have horrified Disney executives who fear even a hint of controversy regarding their marquee films.
Time is running out to save Marvel And Disney+
It’s more than nostalgia. More than another aging Marvel fan saying things used to be better.
Pound for pound, the Netflix Marvel era has delivered better shows, bigger names, and bolder performances, and they’ve been able to do so in large part because there’s been no real attempt to connect them to the MCU films. If Disney+ wants its future Marvel shows to shine (incl Daredevil: Born Again), will need to copy Netflix’s formula by focusing on telling standalone stories rather than endlessly setting up future cinematic sloppiness.
Otherwise, this franchise might be deader than Kang’s future in the MCU and no amount of Robert Downey Jr. stunts like Doctor Doom or restarting the whole thing will bring it back to life.
